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Old 31st August 2010
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TerryP TerryP is offline
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: USofA
Posts: 1,547
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Oko View Post
I can not think of the single serious advantage of FreeBSD over OpenBSD for a typical desktop user.
Pro FreeBSD:
  • Programs in ports tend to be updated more frequently (in the majority of cases) than OpenBSD packages, in my experience. (I mean between OS releases)
  • Linux emulation is maintained, and a much higher priority than OpenBSDs.
  • A number of linux binaries avail for quick via ports, e.g. opera, flash, teamspeak2, etc. Useful when there isn't access to the apps source code.
  • For what use WINE is on BSD, it's probably the best on FreeBSD. Which ain't much use off Linux IMHO.
  • Official'ish nVidia drivers, FWIW.
  • Longer term of support for most releases than OpenBSD. (Security patches, errata, etc getting backported)
  • FreeBSD /bin/sh is better for testing portability of shell scripts than OpenBSDs (pd)ksh based implementation
  • More developers / eye balls

Pro OpenBSD:
  • Easier to update base system
  • Easier to update installed software
  • It doesn't get easier to install than OpenBSD (IMHO)
  • First to see improvements to PF
  • Steady and dependable support cycle.
  • Binary packages are much more reliable than FreeBSD, and generally preferred over ports! (FreeBSD is more of a source based distribution)
  • Awesome version of ksh, that removes the need to install something else (bash, zsh, etc).
  • The FAQ is golden. Read it, memorize it, redirect others to it.
  • The system tends to be more compact
  • Most interesting C library extensions and network drivers, tend to be ported from OpenBSD to FreeBSD/Linux; not so much the inverse.


If I keep going on OpenBSD, I'll hit the maximum size limits for posts, so I'll just say that I like that OS a lot .
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